Star Trek: 20 Worst Episodes Ever

9. Shades Of Gray (TNG)

"We need to isolate memories that generate stronger negative emotions."

At the end of the second season of Star Trek: The Next Generation, the production had to resort to a clip show for their final episode. Paramount had paid extra to complete the episodes Elementary, Dear Data and Q, Who? and now they wanted an episode to come in way under budget. The result was Shades of Gray, which utilised standing sets, had no guest stars (save for semi-regular Chief O'Brien), and was filmed in three days (less than half the time it took to shoot a standard episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation).

Still, even accepting all those limitations, the final result is still tremendously disappointing, and the premise (Riker is infected with a disease, good memories grow the disease, bad memories kill it) would barely be enough to fill out an act break of any other episode. Add to that the usual blunders of clip shows (Riker's memories - of course, scenes from previous episodes - often contain moments he could not have witnessed) and you have yourself a profoundly boring hour.

The Neutral Zone, the first season finale, had problems due to an impending writer's strike, but it was at least a suitable place to wrap up the year. There are a couple of moments of Jonathan Frakes' performance that are worthwhile and the chance to hear Ron Jones score scenes previously tackled by other composers is of minor interest, but on the whole, Shades of Gray is simply an embarrassment that is best forgotten.